Five burning questions surrounding UNC Football this offseason

For 2025, there were several off-season questions that UNC Football fans saw play out in real time, and not in a good way, either. How would Bill Belichick adjust from the professional landscape to the college one? How would the Tar Heels look with 70 new players on the roster and some of which only had fall camp to work with each other? How would Gio Lopez adjust from Sun Belt action to Atlantic Coast Conference play?

We know how all those questions turned out and it wasn't good. It was a rough season and the off-season hype around Bill Belichick, Michael Lombardi, and the UNC Football program quickly diminished. So as expected, we are already turning our attention to 2026 and hoping to forget 2025 happened as quickly as possible.

There are five questions at the top of every North Carolina fan's mind when it comes to what could 2026 possibly look like in Kenan Stadium, and what answers to those questions must happen to start turning this ship around.

Question #1: What will the Quarterback situation look like in 2026?

Okay. So this is a sensitive topic. Gio Lopez got paid really well by the UNC Football program and then ultimately just did not live up to expectations in the 2025 season. There are several factors to look at when determining what caused this. Was it the jump from a mid-major to power four conference? Was it an injury issue that dated back to the pre-season? Was it that he missed spring practice and not having that time with the offense made that big of a difference? Or was he just not the right guy for the job?

There are several factors to consider, and maybe not one single determining one that we will ever know the answer to. What we do know is that the quarterback play for the 2025 season was not good enough to win football games in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

The decision that Michael Lombardi and Bill Belichick will have to make is, do they stick with Gio Lopez (per his reported contract) for the 2026 season and hope that a full off-season of reps will help him progress? Or will they look elsewhere?

If it isn't Gio Lopez, it could be freshman Bryce Baker, who did not see a snap during the 2025 season. Baker was a fan favorite during the recruiting cycle and one of Belichick's first commits after being hired. Another freshman, Au'Tori Newkirk, could be in line for the starting job.

Newkirk saw action during two games in 2025 when the result was out of hand and with a very small sample size. Against Richmond, he threw one pass and versus NC State he led a touchdown drive at the end of the game completing 3 of his 5 pass attempts and his first career touchdown pass.

If it isn't one of the three Tar Heels currently on the roster, the transfer portal will be somewhere to watch closely when it comes to the most important position on the football field for an offense that struggle mightily in 2025, ranking 129th out of 134 FBS teams.

Question #2: Will there be any coaching staff changes?

This question really goes hand in hand with our first question. The biggest question mark when it comes to the coaching staff was the offensive coordinator role and Freddie Kitchens. Many UNC Football fans questioned the decision to keep Kitchens from the Mack Brown staff when Belichick was hired by North Carolina.

The stats and eye test from the 2025 season showed us that the Tar Heel fans were right to question that decision. As previously mentioned, the offense ranked at the bottom of the FBS in total offense and was the second worst power four offense, trailing only Wisconsin.

Two of the biggest question marks that UNC football fans continued to ask during the season was 1) if Gio Lopez was recruited and marketed as a running quarterback, why did Kitchens not call more designed run plays for him? And 2) Why did he continuously call roll outs to the right side of the field for a left handed quarterback?

Everyone with basic football knowledge knows that you roll right handed quarterbacks to the right, and left handed quarterbacks to the left. This keeps them from throwing back across their body. With experienced quarterbacks, you can call these plays occasionally to keep the defense on their toes, but with a struggling quarterback like Lopez, it appeared as if Kitchens was just hindering the offense even more.

Will Belichick stick with Kitchens in the offensive coordinator? Or will a change be made? Could we see Chip Kelly, who is currently looking for a job? Or does Belichick give Kitchens another year while giving him a more serviceable quarterback?

Question #3: How good is the 2026 recruiting class and what impactful players could there be as true freshmen?

This is an undercover question that we will learn more about as the signing class has completed itself this week. You can view the signing day tracker here.

The 2026 signing class is ranked No. 12 by ESPN, which is obviously well respected and very good on the surface and ranked 2nd in the ACC, behind Miami who is No. 11 overall. But there are some questions to be answered revolving around the class.

The question that I have is, how good is this class really? Is this a quantity over quality ranking? Or is the 2026 class really going to be that great and be able to lay the foundation to finally turn the UNC Football program around?

There are currently 39 signed players to the UNC Football program in this class. That is the second most recruits in a single class according to 247Sports. West Virginia has 44 total commits in their class. This question won't be answered for several years, but for the sake of turning the program around and heading in the right direction, Belichick and the UNC Football program desperately needs this class to have a high talent floor and be able to reach an even higher celing.

Question #4: How will Michael Lombardi and Bill Belichick handle the transfer portal in their first full cycle in Chapel Hill?

In line with the recruiting class, comes the new era of college athletics which is the transfer portal. How will Lombardi and Belichick handle the transfer portal in their first full off-season cycle? Last year gave us Melkart Abou Jaoude, a transfer from Delaware, who proved to have a huge impact along the defensive line.

Thaddeus Dixon and Khmori House were two huge impact transfers from Washington, following Steve Belichick to Chapel Hill to help build the defense to one of their highest rankings in years.

And as we've mentioned, Gio Lopez was of course a transfer that didn't pan out. The ultimate question will be, how is the transfer portal be handled with also 39 incoming freshman being signed? Who will be the top targets in the transfer portal, some of which we probably don't even know about yet as more than half the country is still playing football in either bowl games or the College Football Playoff.

We will be covering all potential transfer portal signings at Keeping It Heel, so stay tuned as high profile names hit the portal and become of interest to Belichick and the UNC Football program.

Question #5: Can Steve Belichick and the defense build on an improving 2025 season and become a top force in the ACC?

For years, North Carolina football fans longed for a solid defense that could be relied on. Behind strong offensive schemes led by Marquise Williams, Sam Howell, and Drake Maye, the Tar Heels put up yards and points in flashes. The downfall was the inability to stop opposing offenses to do the same, regardless of level of competition.

Whether it was Clemson, Baylor, or Appalachian State, it didn't matter. UNC Football defenses were not able to get a stop (anyone remember 63-61 in Boone a few years ago?) and it was so frustrating. It did not matter who the coach was, Larry Fedora, Mack Brown, any defensive coordinator from the last decade, the Tar Heels defense has been horrendous.

Well that was not an issue for most of the 2025 season. Steve Belichick had the Tar Heels inside the top 30 in total defense at one point this year and as of December 3rd, they are 39th in the FBS in total defense.

The Tar Heels held Virginia, the 26th ranked offense in the country, to just 17 points in Chapel Hill and had a chance to win the game in overtime. The Cavaliers will play for an ACC Championship this weekend in Charlotte.

Even some of the games that had high scoring totals (TCU and Clemson), weren't necessarily due to poor defense, rather it was the offense turning the ball over in opponent territory and putting the defense in a bad position.

So the question for 2026 will be, can Steve Belichick continue to improve from the UNC Football defense while the offense tries to make improvements to keep the Tar Heels in more games and find ways to win games?

The 2026 schedule will be much more challenging than 2025, and the defense (and offense) will need to be up for the challenge to make significant strides as the calendar turns to 2026. These are all questions that need to be answered over the next several months of the off-season and ones that we look forward to covering as we countdown the days (268!) to August 29th and the Aer Lingus College Football Classic versus TCU.